Yes, breastfeeding will always be best but it doesn't work for everyone.
Parents copped a double whammy this week, also made to feel bad for putting children in daycare after the release of a research paper claiming it could have long-term mental and physical effects on children.
Anything can be bad for some children, but I imagine it would be hard to find parents who would say daycare harmed their children. Many have no choice on the matter.
They have to work and daycare is their only option.
The week ended with schools getting a bad rap for being lax about the risk to children from skin cancer. Only a few apparently meet all 12 criteria in the SunSmart Schools Accreditation Programme.
Everyone knows the dangers of our harsh New Zealand sun. I'm sure schools do what they feel they can in this regard but have our ideas about why children go to school become a bit muddied?
Schools have to make sure children have had breakfast, eat healthy foods, put on sunblock, learn how to swim, know about hygiene and the evils of drugs, know about road safety and sex, know they should be nice to one another and treat one another with respect - and a whole bunch of other health and parenting-related matters we just keep piling on.
If this is what we now expect of our schools, on top of providing an education, perhaps we need to provide them with funding to each employ a health educator, someone who can take care of all those things some might consider primarily the role of parents. That way teachers can actually concentrate on their core job.
Meanwhile, this week, in a Rotorua courthouse, a man was on trial for allegedly abusing his son. The preschooler suffered a skull fracture, bleeding to the brain and back of the eyes, leg injuries and a fractured arm doctors said could only have been the result of abuse.
In Hamilton another man has been charged with murdering an infant and also this week a man was jailed for allowing his 9-year-old daughter to be abused by her mother.
The judge said it was one of the most serious child cruelty cases seen by the courts. At his sentencing in Auckland the court heard the man played Xbox while the girl's mother, now serving more than seven years in prison, beat their daughter.
She assaulted the girl with a machete and hammer, kicked her while wearing steel-capped boots, tore off a toenail and poured salt and boiling water on the wound. The girl was starving, dehydrated and covered in injuries when found hiding in a cupboard.
Now open for public submissions is the green paper on child abuse, aimed at figuring out how we can ensure all children grow up safe, without fear or threat of violence or abuse, how we can make sure they have enough to eat and access to education.
Maybe, as a nation, we need to get those basics right first, before we start in on breastfeeding, the potential harm of daycare and how many more responsibilities, outside of core education, our schools should have.
